The series finale of Game of Thrones (GoT) that was telecast on Sunday night is expected to create a television record with the maximum viewership on 19 May, 2019. According to a survey by The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated conducted by The Harris Poll, the much-awaited finale of Game of Thrones (GoT) will cause the maximum disruption at offices today, with absenteeism expected to be quite high. With 34 per cent employees in the US having planned to watch the finale last night, most will either skip work today, reach late, call in sick, opt to work from home, and put in lesser hours of work.
About 27.2 million employees in the country admitted that the finale will directly affect their work and professional commitments.
The online ‘Absence is Coming’ survey revealed that approx. 10.7 million employees who planned to watch the finale were sure that they will not be reporting for work today. About 5.8 million workers who usually worked on Sunday nights had planned to take the day off to watch the finale. About 2.9 million of those surveyed intended to report late to work today while 3.4 million intended to opt for remote working. The finale of this extremely popular television series was watched by even those people who were away from home, that is, about 21 per cent of those surveyed.
In fact, the final season of the series has been known to be adversely affecting workplace productivity for some time now. About 20.4 million employees in the US admitted that their attendance at work had been impacted because they were hooked to the series. An alarming 4.4. million employees have even skipped work just to watch re-runs or catch up on the episodes they had missed!
About 7.3 million employees admitted to reporting sick, taken a day off for personal work or even used a vacation day to avoid going to work the day after they watched a GoT episode.
Many admit that the series plays on their mind even while at work. A significant number (12.7 million) who have been following the current season claim that they spend at least five hours a week discussing the series, reading about it or posting comments on the same, whereas another 16.5 million have spent one to four hours doing the same.
About 35.8 million employees have spent a minimum of an hour every week of their active working hours discussing, reading about, or posting content about GoT, despite not being regular watchers of the show.
